Recorded from Sept 2018 to April 2019 and put out on a very limited “cd-only release,” these tracks reflect the early formation of some central ideas: guitar feedback and improvisation, often in layers, often over odd times. The recordings are hella rough, but I feel like a lot of this holds up, especially tracks 1 and 6.

Track 1: “Late Winter”- the first il coltello/the knife song. It kinda has a PiL meets Joy Division thing going on. I recorded this right before me, signora ic/tk, and le nostre figlie went to Sicily for a couple of weeks. That Sicily trip finds its way into a few of these early songs. The lyrics: the water’s gone/and it won’t be there/and it won’t be anywhere/late winter.

Track 2: “brett k”- Awake at 4am with jet lag one morning in Palermo, this rhythm jammed in my head as I listened to workers on the streets outside: 1234,1234,123. When we arrived back in the states, the Brett Kavanaugh hearings were on every tv in the airport. Lyrics: I saw you at that party.

Track 3: After “brett k” I somehow decided that using a repeated riff was too “conventional” and I needed to move away from it. So “Rosalia” was the first experiment with guitar layers with no set pattern except bass and drums putting down a beat in 13. It became the template for a lot of the music of this project overall. Santa Rosalia is the patron saint of Palermo. It is said that her intervention stopped the plague in the 12th century. Her image appears in the upper right corner of our bandcamp page. (She comes up again on the album “Crows” in a song prayer for covid-19 protection, “Help Us, Santa Rosalia.") The lyrics are a plea to stop the gun violence/ school shootings that were happening at the time: there’s too much hate/ guns going off every day/when will we find peace/before it’s too late/oh Santa Rosalia, hear me beg/save us from this plague.

Track 4: “Mr Pablo” The first of the melodica songs, this one is an homage to the master of the melodica, Augustus Pablo.

Track 5: “Thoughts and Prayers,”- school shootings, again. It is also the first il coltello/the knife video. Check it out here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgiojyhJSWw&ab_channel=TKHardin

Track 6: “The Future Becoming” is your basic guitar burner in 4 with 4 part vocals. This song is where I learned the trick of feedback on one string while playing others at the same time.

Track 7: “The Stroll” is just a chill melodica thing.

Track 8: “Veteran’s Day” is a fucking mess. I like how it ends, though, which is probably the worst thing you can say about a song.